Posted
by
kdawsonon Monday June 22, 2009 @10:53PM
from the madisonian-moment dept.

circletimessquare writes "The Obama administration opened a discussion forum in January of this year which has become an electronic suggestion box. It is now entering stage three, following brainstorm and discussion phases: the draft phase, in which the top subject matter is codified into suggestions for the government. 'Ultimately, the visitors advanced more than 3,900 ideas, which in turn spawned 11,000 comments that received 210,000 thumb votes. The result? Three of the top 10 most popular ideas called for legalizing marijuana, and two featured conspiracy theories about Mr. Obama's true place of birth.'"

He's a researcher at UCLA and has ran a government study over the course of 30+ years to conclude that marijuana does not cause cancer, and even possesses anti-cancer qualities. Cells die before they have a chance to mutate. The closest thing you'll get to his research is an interview with him on Youtube. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJmQ16cGBHU&feature=player_embedded [youtube.com] And you can see Dr. Tashkin's profile at the UCLA website. http://www.lung.med.ucla.edu/faculty/tashkin.htm [ucla.edu]
He's America's leading expert into smoked marijuana, and he was employed to conduct this research by the US Government quite some years ago.

"We conclude that smoking marijuana, regardless of tetrahydrocannabinol content, results in a substantially greater respiratory burden of carbon monoxide and tar than smoking a similar quantity of tobacco"

Yes, there's more to it than that. And yes there are 612 items listed under that google search. And no, I didn't read through them for a counterpoint. Feel free. But I have no problem believing him to be a gov't funded expert. (note that doesn't make him a government expert.)

"We conclude that smoking marijuana, regardless of tetrahydrocannabinol content, results in a substantially greater respiratory burden of carbon monoxide and tar than smoking a similar quantity of tobacco"

You do know that is terribly misleading though, don't you?

People don't smoke marijuana in a "similar quantity" to tobacco.

in fact, there are types of systems that deliver much less carbon monoxide and tar even when similar quantities are used. See http://www.maps.org/ [maps.org] for the current state of research of this kind.

When you say that it's "obvious to ANYONE ELSE WHO KNOWS THEM [pot smokers]: pot has long-term personality effects.", you're quite simply wrong.

In SOME people (addicts), long-term heavy use can change personality somewhat. Everyone knows a few complete stoners who are high so much of the time that their capacity to deal with things is reduced. But the mistake you're making is assuming that EVERYONE WHO SMOKES POT IS AN ADDICT. And that's a big mistake.

We all know how alcohol can change people's lives - but MOST people who drink alcohol are not alcoholics. In the exact same way, just because SOME people get addicted to pot, smoke too much, and get side effects does not mean that everyone who smokes occasionally will have the same effects.

It's a perception-bias issue: you think that pot changes personalities because you only NOTICE the people who are addicts. For the vast majority of people who smoke pot, you can't tell that they do, because they don't abuse it. Believe me, If everyone you know who smoked wore a big neon sign that said "I smoke pot sometimes", you'd realize that for most people, which smoke occasionally and responsibly, those kinds of "personality effects" don't happen. It's easy to tell when someone is drunk, or if they clearly have a drinking problem, but for people who only drink moderately or occasionally, you can't tell them from anyone else because they're not abusing it.

You're taking extreme cases and generalizing them to a huge group of people. That's a serious mistake. It's like saying that everyone who plays poker is a gambling addict.

Marijuana is a fairly safe herbal supplement with thousands of years of demonstrated safe use. By even the most exaggerated accounts it is less addictive than most cough syrups. The known side effects are less severe and occur with less frequency than over the counter medications like say Aspirin and many other herbal supplements.

According to the FDA's own rules an herbal remedy with an established long term history of safe use should be unregulated right alongside all the other herbal supplements from the scam diet pills to those supported by clinical evidence like Ginko Biloba.

There is no legitimate reason to make marijuana a black market product but there are plenty of illegitimate reasons.

But the point still stands that weed makes folks do irrational things that can't be explained without assuming addiction.

[citation needed]
Please refrain from spitting personal opinions you can't back up with scientific data onto this site. There is no evidence that weed alters a person's basic personality structure (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabis_(drug)#Effects) - and if you define "irrational" as being willing to break the law, you need to reconsider your usage of the word.

Legalize it, then it can be taxed and regulated. We should strongly consider doing the same thing with other drugs, too. If drugs were legally available, there would be no profit in the illicit drug trade, we would see a reduction in crime at all levels, and the medical costs associated with overdoses and adulterated drugs would also decrease. Legalizing marajuana would be an excellent test case.

Also, if marajuana was legalized, then hemp would be legalized, and the USA would again have a valuable cash crop to grow on marginal lands. It is stupid that hemp is an illegal crop... the only reason for it being illegal is that it seemed easier to pass a law against hemp than to train law enforcement personnel in the simple botany needed to make the distinction. I, for one, think that our cops are smart enough to learn how to do a simple field test.

Of course, legalizing any of the highly profitable black market drugs would mean bucking the lobbying efforts of one of the USA's major industries, and one of the very few that enjoys freedom from paying any taxes on its profits. So I don't expect this to happen soon or without great effort.

Legalize it, then it can be taxed and regulated. We should strongly consider doing the same thing with other drugs, too. If drugs were legally available, there would be no profit in the illicit drug trade, we would see a reduction in crime at all levels, and the medical costs associated with overdoses and adulterated drugs would also decrease. Legalizing marajuana would be an excellent test case.

Also, if marajuana was legalized, then hemp would be legalized, and the USA would again have a valuable cash crop to grow on marginal lands. It is stupid that hemp is an illegal crop... the only reason for it being illegal is that it seemed easier to pass a law against hemp than to train law enforcement personnel in the simple botany needed to make the distinction. I, for one, think that our cops are smart enough to learn how to do a simple field test.

Of course, legalizing any of the highly profitable black market drugs would mean bucking the lobbying efforts of one of the USA's major industries, and one of the very few that enjoys freedom from paying any taxes on its profits. So I don't expect this to happen soon or without great effort.

I agree with you entirely that marijuana (and many other drugs) should be legalized. The vast majority of the problems associated with drugs are direct results of their being illegal, and enforcement accomplishes nothing but raising the price.

I'd like to ask the slashdot community if they've ever heard of anyone who wanted it having trouble getting pot (or almost any common street drug for that matter). If we're not making access to the drugs difficult, what exactly are we doing? It's pretty damned obvious what the negative effects of making drugs illegal are - at the most basic level, the drug trade funnels millions of dollars to organized crime. Then there's the fact that it's much harder to help people with drug problems if they're afraid of being treated as criminals. Finally, without regulation and control, otherwise safe drugs (at least as safe if not safer than alcohol) can be adulterated and made toxic. The laws don't seem to be doing anything other stuffing our overcrowded prison systems. Personally I dislike pot - I think it makes people stupid and boring, and I don't like my mind to feel dull - but it's pretty damned obvious to anyone with half a brain that right now we're doing nothing but harm.

Illegal drugs are made by TERRORISTS and ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS. They are often sold, on the street, by STREET GANGS. By REGULATING the trade of these substances, we TAKE JOBS AWAY from HARD WORKING AMERICANS, and LET THE BAD GUYS WIN.

The cost of preventing illegal drug imports, and the lost revenue from the taxes that could be applied to these if they were legal leads to HIGHER TAXES, and LESS MONEY FOR SCHOOLS.

Okay, I'll be honest. I don't know where to get any street drug, including pot. And I'm honestly perplexed at the people who claim that everyone already knows where to get them. (I'm not asking for directions, FBI.) I don't know of any friends who do them, and any friend who I suspect would have connections, I haven't talked to in so long they'd probably be suspicious.

So, how much of an outlier am I?

Oh, you're not an outlier. But you may not know your friends as well as you think you do.:) Personally, I

Hmm. Our economy is a disaster. We have two wars going on with no real plan to get out of either. We have a health care problem in this country that nobody has proposed a meaningful solution to. The national debt is increased every year with no end in sight. We have multiple states on the verge of financial ruin. Our national infrastructure is falling apart in many ways and places. Our education system is falling behind further every year.

And for some reason marijuana is an important issue? Are you kidding me? I don't see how it could possibly be more relevant than any of the issues I already listed. If we could solve all of them, then I would be comfortable with our national government looking into this "marijuana issue" (whatever the hell the issue is). But until then I don't see why it merits the time of our government.

Lets see... You legalize marijuana and you can cut down on the number of arrests made, cut down on the number of cops, when you legalize it you would also allow for new industries to thrive, tax dollars to collect, Assuming even only a moderate increase of marijuana consumption as a part of it being legalized, you open up an entire new industry, more jobs, less spending for the government, more freedom and more revenue.

There is no way you can argue for marijuana to not be legalized by a purely financial standpoint. Plus, legalizing it will cut costs, and spend less time looking at the issue rather than the more time you are foolishly suggesting.

Hemp happens to be really useful though. Good for most kinds of clothing (they can make surprisingly soft clothes out of hemp), ropes, belts. My shoes are hemp and rubber. All of that stuff would be cheaper if we could grow it here. Add to that medical uses for THC and the huge amounts of money we waste arresting people who are just hurting themselves and it starts to get really obvious that legalizing marijuana is actually worth pursuing.

Marijuana is Hemp but Hemp is not necessarily Marijuana. We could continue the ban on Marijuana and still legalize hemp. In fact Marijuana (as even cited by your own Wikipedia link) is an inferior plant for non-recreational and medicinal applications.

Right. Because we all know that today no one smokes marijuana on a regular basis. I don't think that you would see an astronomical amount of new users if this was legalized similar to how even though tobacco is legal less than 20% of adults smoke. Current figures say that 6% of the US adult population uses marijuana (http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/FASTATS/druguse.htm), assuming a non-radical climb, you wouldn't have a societal level of use. Similarly, alcohol does a lot of that stuff, yet more people use it and it

and marijuana is still less harmful than alcohol and nicotine. do you really want to stack the health effects of marijuana you list against the health effects of nicotine or alcohol?

and so its not logically coherent to have nicotine and alcohol legal, and thc illegal. ban all three, or legalize all three. that's the only logically coherent position. a sound pharmacological understanding of the relative effects of the three drugs leads to the inevitable conclusion that making one of the three illegal is arbitrary, and really nothing more than a racist historical artifact from when marijuana was a scary loco weed that mexicans used. the frontier judge's daddy meanwhile was a proper german or irish drunk: familiarity. therefore, legality. no other good reason exists for marijuana's illegality than historical xenophobia. certainly not pharmacological science

i can see meth permanently banned and the DEA waging war on that drug forever. same with cocaine, same with heroin. the addictiveness of these drugs is off the charts, combined with long term incapacitation (unlike nicotine, which is extremely addictive, but doesn't incapacitate). you can't work. you can't have a relationship. you can take meth, cocaine, and heroin and turn someone who would otherwise have a productive life into a zombie that forsakes the difficulties of your average relationship and your average job in order to feed a need

but marijuana? its lightweight

please. this isn't about legalization of all drugs, just marijuana. and please don't suggest legalizing marijuana means we have legalize far, far worse substances. that's like saying allowing gay marriage means we will have to legalize bestiality and necrophilia. fear mongering bullshit

Almost one million arrests per year ? 50 to 100,000 people or so in jail at any one time for possession ? A few dozen people killed each year while being arrested or while in jail ?Corruption all over the place ? Damn straight it's an important issue. And, unlike many issues, it is a purely government issue, that the government could solve in a week, if the government was interested in actually listening to what the people were saying.

I would just like to point out that Narconon runs the web site you pulled this info from. According to Wikipedia:

Narconon is an in-patient rehabilitation program for drug abusers in several dozen treatment centers worldwide, chiefly in the United States and western Europe. Each Narconon center is independently owned and operated under a license from ABLE International, a Scientology-related entity.

According to the Lancet [thelancet.com] journal (simplified graph on the Wiki [wikipedia.org]), alcohol is both more addictive and more dangerous than cannabis. If adults can be trusted with booze, they should be trusted with weed.

I'm sorry about your friend, I really am, but I can tell you a thousand stories of lives ruined by alcohol and tobacco, two products

$14 trillion is your DEBT you illiterate. Debt is money owed which is a fraction of your total obligations.

The government does more than just borrow money it creates programs to spend that money on and each American (currently) also has half a million dollars worth of *obligations* to pay for. The government can't put 100% of the money it receives into paying back debt without taking money away from it's programs and services. Which is why I clearly stated that it would take over a century to pay that 14 trillion down even with 100% of Americans wages going in as the government also has to pay for it's obligations (Social Security, Medicare, Military, Beauracracy) which are increasing rapidly over time, even if they didn't allow new spending starting now.

Your current tax level isn't even coming *close* to paying for the governments obligations *let alone* making repayments on the debt and interest owed on bonds. Which is why your government has borrowed nearly 10 trillion dollars from the citizens of China, Russia, Japan, Saudi Arabia and others in the last decade to keep the good times going.

So you're either going to raise taxes to an astronomical level, slash and burn your government services and keep taxes at the same level or do the tried and true practice of bankrupt governments and devalue your currency or worse simply default.

The article gets it right in saying it is a "suggestion box." All we can do is suggest to our rulers what we want them to do: they still get to decide. This is still not democracy. It's barely even a democratic republic.

If you want real democracy, please consider joining the Metagovernment [metagovernment.org] project which is a collective of projects [metagovernment.org] working to make governance a truly open system for everyone.

The only way to have a truly free government is to have a government that protects only against force and fraud. That way you have freedom to do whatever you want to while being safe because of the government.

The only way to have a truly free government is to have a government that protects only against force and fraud.

If so, then people who ask for a "truly free government" should be careful what they wish for.

That way you have freedom to do whatever you want to while being safe because of the government.

Well, no, not quite. A ban on force and fraud is, itself, a restriction on your freedom: you aren't free to do whatever you want if what you want involves force or fraud. It's a perfectly justified restriction, but it's still a restriction.

More importantly, a government that only protects against force and fraud is a government that doesn't regulate industry. We've seen where that leads, from healing tonics to meat packing to investment banking. There's plenty of deception and destruction that doesn't quite fall under the umbrella of "force and fraud".

Ok, if the healing tonics say that they work and they don't you can sue them for fraud. If the meat packing industries claim they are safe to eat (or insinuate it due to advertising or product placement) and they aren't you can sue them for fraud. If the investments aren't as secure as their ratings say they are, you can sue them for fraud. Eventually, businesses will regulate themselves [...]

That's easy to say, but in practice it hasn't worked that way. It took the establishment of the FDA and SEC to actually make food and investments safer, and even now it still isn't perfect (witness the recent banking fiasco).

Think about how much more third-party regulators would do for things that might actually cause illness.

It's nice to imagine things like that, but again, if it's as simple as you make it sound, why haven't third party regulators actually sprung up and done anything? No one stopped third party food and drug regulators from coming into existence before the FDA, so where were they? Where were the independent securities rating agencies during the recent banking fiasco? They were in the pockets of the very institutions they were supposed to be rating.

The reason why third party regulators didn't step in before the FDA is because people back before The Jungle was published were blissfully ignorant. [...]

For the investment firms, most Americans didn't really care how they were investing. Rather than doing research they decided to hire someone to put their money in a bunch of stocks that they didn't pick out. Thats what carelessness gets you.

So, we should just resign ourselves to endless cycles of "get screwed, pay a little more attention, wait for third-party rating firms to spring up, put your trust in a third party rating firm that seems OK (not that you can tell, because you're not an expert on the subject, which is why you need them in the first place), pray they don't become corrupt, eventually become complacent, get screwed again"?

I, for one, would rather have an organization with a government mandate that's transparent and accountable to the people, not a smorgasbord of private organizations where I'll have no idea which ones to trust and where none of them are really accountable to anyone.

Managed funds serve a vital purpose: it's unreasonable to expect everyone to hand-pick every component of their portfolio, and most of them would do a terrible job anyway, because they aren't professional investors. Likewise, it's unreasonable to expect everyone to be an expert on medicine, auto repair, or any other service they're considering. If you lack the knowledge to be a doctor, you probably also lack the knowledge to recognize whether a doctor knows what he's doing, as well as the knowledge to recognize whether the third party telling you that a doctor knows what he's doing actually knows what they're doing.

This is insightful? In a world where BILLIONS of consumers can rate and review the efficacy and truthfulness of products on the web, government regulation of healing tonics is worthless.

Consumers don't run double-blind placebo-controlled trials. Precious few even know what that means or why it's important. The result of deregulating medical products is a whole lot of snake oil. You can see this on your local store shelves in the form of the unregulated supplement industry. Consumer reviews don't work as wel

In a world where BILLIONS of consumers can rate and review the efficacy and truthfulness of products on the web, government regulation of healing tonics is worthless.

Tell that to the people who lost their sense of smell by using Zicam.

Meat packing? Do you really think government regulations has made food safer, or market forces?

Government regulation.

Market forces can't go into a food processing plant and see what's going into the vats. Health inspectors can. Market forces can cut off your future profits, but they can't put you in jail or take away the fortunes you've already earned by turning your employees into sausage.

Investment banking is a world regulated by government's manipulation of their near-worthless fiat currency. I don't blame the banks, I blame the people in charge of creating the fluff-money most people think has value over their lifetimes.

As opposed to, say, gold, which is a fluff-metal most people think has value over their lifetimes. The only difference is the gold supply is controlled unpredictably by mining companies, natural deposits, and industrial use, rather than regulators who control the supply intentionally to achieve policy goals.

So now all the employers in your vicinity work you 90 hours a week at the equivalent of $3 per hour. And they collude (there's nothing forceful or fraudulent about that), and say that if a particular candidate doesn't win elections in your area they're going to fire everyone (there are plenty of replacement workers out there, since only half the number of people are employed thanks to the 90 hr/week rule). And before you say that some of those unemployed masses could just start their own businesses, the sam

and give rise to revolution or a strong man who throws out all the rights in the republic to reestablish order, leading to autocracy

if you aren't explicit about the whole democracy thing, you wind up with an aristocratic elite with a firm grip on the government. study the history of all republics, this is a natural evolution. for all of its flaws, democracy has a feature which trumps everything else: it manufactures legitimacy. the will of the people is consulted, and the government is chosen from that will. the people are happy they have their say. there is always malcontent, in any system, but it is held at a minimum in democracy

without the explicit consultation democracy provides, the will of the people and the agenda of the ruling class begin to drift apart over time. simple miscommunication and entropy can be the culprit, no real malice, although there's always enough of that around. mistrust and illegtimacy is the result, and social stability decays, eventually leading to outright revolt or an incredibly weak government that gives way to a strong man and autocracy who reestablishes order, but at the cost of all the precious rights you look to a republic to guarantee

so you're stuck with democracy. it provides stability. a republic without democracy isn't stable, it decays

and i really have to wonder what makes you so distrustful of your fellow man. some sort of blind conceit on your part probably, a personal failure of yours

Democracy is not strictly defined as majority rule. If you read the linked site, most of the developing governance systems are about consensus democracy, liquid democracy, or other more advanced and thought-provoking forms than mere rule by the 51%.

The scenarios you suggest don't play out when consensus governance systems start in small communities and gradually scale to larger and larger ones. instead, you find that interested people work to make their communities genuinely better.

I think I see a flaw in your cunning plan, Mr. President: The people who voted for you are also online. And dear god, are they stupid. Don't feel bad though; The ones that voted for the other guy aren't any smarter. -_- But then, what did you really expect? Given a choice between democracy and educated civil discourse, or a large smack of porn and screaming matches, 9 out of 10 internet users prefer the latter. And the 10th one was a cat walking over the keyboard.

Interestingly, if you think about it, if 9 out of 10 internet users prefer the porn and screaming matchs, the world really isn't all that bad, nor does it appear that there really is that much to get all uppity about.

Thats probably why there really isn't any 'change', its not actually bad enough that people want to put for the effort to do so, they'd rather just enjoy the porn.

Me, I would like to change things, but only so that the ISPs stop fucking with me and my bandwidth and caps, so I can download more

The irony of this is, twofold: One, this is the administration that that had added a huge increase to tobacco taxes, and these people think that the government is actually going to legalize marijuana? Hah hah hah! Good one.

Two, it's just sad that our country's main concern is legalizing some drug that's major benefit is to get people high. While marijuana has a lot of medical uses, and banning it is pointless, it's just pathetic that nobody cares about inflation, an overzealous foreign policy, the sick demented system of child "protection" services ruined to scam parents and ruin the family, the court system being a guilty-until-proven-innocent fiasco where the court orders you to prove your innocence and you have to pay for court costs, drugs tests, psych exams, and etc. to prove your innocence, and freedom from censorship. Nope, us Americans gotta have our weed! Gotta get high so we won't have any other problems to worry about, just pretend they don't exist with a nice pipe in front of us.

I guess there is also a third point of irony: Weed stupifies you, you'd think the government would favor deregulating it so they could tax it to the sky's limit and get more money off of you that way, while having a bunch of people too high to care about the other rights the government keeps taking away.

So registering on the site isn't https. I know this isn't credit card information but still, I wonder how many people use the same password for this as they do their email. Too easy to snoop such a high profile web server.

... and a point is made. The United States is NOT a Democracy. We are a Republic. Under a Democracy, the majority forces their opinions on the minority and it eventually turns into an Oligarchy. This is done over years and years of manipulation to grant power to a more specific group each term. We've been boiling down to an ever strong President with lap dog Congressmen and the Federal Reserve who control our country instead of the people it was intended for. You, me, and your neighbor.

... and a point is made. The United States is NOT a Democracy. We are a Republic.

You say that as if they're mutually explusive. They're not. Dictatorship and democracy are mutually explusive. Monarchy and republic are mutually exclusive. But all democracies are either a republic or a monarchy, and the US is not a monarchy. It's a democratic federal republic (although you could argue about how democratic it really is, considering how the system is organised to effectively only allow two parties to be represented in Congress, and a president can be elected on a minority vote).

Under a Democracy, the majority forces their opinions on the minority and it eventually turns into an Oligarchy.

Not necessarily, although it is what's hapened in the US. But that's more because of the lack of real democracy in the system.

In our Republic, laws are set forth through a strict set of procedures to ensure fairness to all parties involved, not just the most popular.

In which republic exactly? Definitely not in the US, where only the two biggest parties have any real chance of representation.

Fuck all of you. You still believe that schoolboy bullshit about how the country is governed? Dream on, sleepers!

Let me spell it out for you: The United States is a "Goldman Sachsocracy" The man with the gold will sack us all over the world. [salon.com]

Freedom? You have more people incarcerated in your borders than any nation in history. Why? It's good for business.

I wish Americans had half the guts of 15-year-old Iranian girls! There'd have been 5 American Revolutions since 1870. Your textbook lies about the accountability of US government to the people have kept you complacent, and made you both arrogant yet ignorant and oppressed.

They just stole over a hundred billion dollars from your earnings and your next two generations, and GAVE it to a firm that prints your money, runs your fiscal policy and just paid out the BIGGEST bonuses [guardian.co.uk] in its 140 year history.

You live in the Matrix - and that's not a metaphor. Like George Carlin said; "They call it the American Dream, because you have to be asleep to believe it.

Let me spell it out for you: The United States is a "Goldman Sachsocracy"

So is the whole world. The communists made a slightly different game of it, but there will always be an elite class.

Freedom? You have more people incarcerated in your borders than any nation in history. Why? It's good for business.

Not quite. People in this country support tough-on-crime politicians and the war on drugs. Combine that with racism and ghettos and you have a recipe for a large prison population. The private prison industry is a symptom, not a cause - though I concede that they are now powerful enough to help sustain the cycle.

They just stole over a hundred billion dollars from your earnings and your next two generations, and GAVE it to a firm that prints your money, runs your fiscal policy and just paid out the BIGGEST bonuses [guardian.co.uk] in its 140 year history.

You're off by an order of magnitude. Goldman got $10 billion in TARP funds and by almost all accounts can't wait to pay it back as soon as the US government lets them. Goldman is being rewarded by the market for making the right moves a year and a half ago in the mortgage market. They are one of the last men standing and in the absence of much competition have been exceedingly profitable. The bonuses are record-breaking because the profits are record-breaking. This is not an AIG example where bonuses are being paid out by a failed firm.

Wake up.

Not gonna happen. Your best bet is to work within the existing system, which can be quite lucrative.

"It needs to perform actions that might not directly be popular with the people (elections, I'm looking at you)"

this exhibits lack of faith in the common person. this is your failure, not the common people's. an appeal to some sort of elite group who somehow knows better for what the people need than the people themselves is logically false, and exhibits anti-democratic and authoritarian instincts on your part

"I can't see how a monarchy can be democratic. The monarch has ultimate power and so the people do not."

Honestly, did you even do basic research on various types of monarchies in the world?No?Didn't think so.

There are vast differences between types of monarchies just as there are vast different differences between republics.For example, here's a list of 3 republics:-the US- North Korea- Iran

They are ALL republics(look it up if you don't believe me) yet they ALL have vastly different types of goverment. If you would compare them, they would be put in three totally different categories yet they are ALL republics.

In the same way there are different types of monarchies with three examples:

- Saudi-Arabia- The Netherlands- Sweden

These types of monarchies are again vastly different. 1 is an absolute monarchy, 2 are democracies. 2 out of 3 have the monarch as head of goverment yet all 3 have the monarch as head of state. If you do some further research about the topic you will notice that pretty much all sates are different in the way they function and that the words "republic" and "monarchy" can have vastly different meanings in different parts of the world.

I can't see how a monarchy can be democratic. The monarch has ultimate power and so the people do not.

Your medieval world view is tremendously out of date. There are dozens of democratic constitutional monarchies in the world. Much of Europe, for example.

A monarchy can be superficially democratic in order to avoid the monarchs subjects from getting pissed-off and establishing an alternate government but it's never truly a democracy if, when you've voted for something, the monarch can just say "nah, don't like that" and refuse to instigate it.

King Baudouin of Belgium could refuse to sign a law that parliament passed. In order to pass the law anyway, Belgium became a republic for a day. However, most kings don't have that right.

First of all, you need to get your terminology straightened out. The terms democracy and republic describe different aspects of government and are not mutually exclusive. The United States is both.

But using your definitions, you seem to be arguing that we have moved from a government with *more* tolerance for minority opinion to a government with *less* tolerance for minority opinion. This is laughably false.

Maybe you would like to rephrase your argument and give specific examples of what you are talking

In our Republic, laws are set forth through a strict set of procedures to ensure fairness to all parties involved, not just the most popular. This is why we were formed as a Republic and NOT a Democracy.

Your country was formed as a Republic because a bunch of slave owning bastards who had massive political and economic power saw it as a way to have even more power and less responsibility for their slaves. It wasn't formed by God and The People because they thought it was fair, it was formed by incumbent

all of human political history, all of the world, not just the west, is defined by malice, trickery, gross incompetence and manipulation

people who are reflexively cynical at the lowest common denominator level are laughable only because they think these tired common thoughts are original, and worse, they think these "revelations" are deep. they speak of feeble minds who actually swallowed weak lies to begin with (my government is noble! dear leader is impervious!). they speak of the somehow dramatic and ama

Democracy is a POS form of government. Has been at least as far back as the Greek empire.

There never was a "Greek empire" with democracy. There were separate city states, with varying forms of government. The "empire" you think of is most probably Athens, where democracy did work, but that's not because of the system. It's because everyone knew everyone else, and honor was considered more important than life. If you got caught with a lie, even your grandson would be called a son of a liar.

Actually if my history teacher serves me right, democracy didn't really work that well. One of the philosophers, I forget who, came up with a republic because of this. He saw a flaw and came up with a solution.

It is a series of hypothetical dialogs, as if conducted by his master, Socrates, with his school and visitors to court, on the ideal rule for the City-State. It does NOT outline or advocate a republican form of governance. It's ideal is a Philosopher King - and models this through contrasting forms and their evolutions.

In modern terms, Plato is a prototype for Fascism - with the good of a state being the highest form of Government - above any kind of personal interest or property - provided the state is "just". The nature of this "justness" also provides much of the food for the book's discussions.

In it, he also issues the allegory of the cave. Interestingly, this is the model for The Matrix - which is where most of you are living your lives!

I'm guessing this is why the English have been, for centuries, known around the world for their ignorant, rude, brashness whilst the Americans are recognized far and wide for their dainty manners and eccentric etiquette?

I'm fairly certain they're still ignoring the issue that the most people who participated in this poll and who are in all likelyhood are not representative of the voting publicwere interested in changing, legalization of marijuana.

Fixed that for you.

An online poll conducted like this is going to be ridiculously skewed. Even if no one cheated, voting hundreds of times for their own "legalize pot" suggestions, the demographic here is going to be much MUCH younger than the average voting population. No age restrictions. And half the people who posted on there probably sent a link to all their friends and posted it on like-minded forums. Those people who are really REALLY opposed to legalization are also less likely to participate in this. Likewise, a lot of those people most in favor of legalization don't vote or can't vote yet.

I think it's more likely this was actually a way of getting younger voters interested in government.

People always think that the only reason to legalize cannibus is pot. It's not. It's not even the best reason. It barely makes the top ten, and even then, only because it's the most effective anti-nauseant (anti-emetic for pedants) known to modern science. Hemp fiber could replace wood pulp for use in paper tomorrow for a tenth our current cost. It could replace synthetic fibers in textiles and increase the strength, durability, comfort, threadfastness and affordability of the clothing and cloth products that it goes into. As a byproduct of the hemp fiber industry, hemp oil could replace synthetic lubricants at a fraction of the current cost in industrial applications.

Proper crop rotation with hemp and other cash crops can virtually eliminate the need for artificial fertilizers. The list just keeps going on and on. And all you prohibitionists can think about is getting stoned.

No, they're thinking about their jobs. Fewer people to arrest, fewer people to jail, fewer people to track once out on parole. Hell, the prison guard's union in california consistently lobbies for harsher sentencing for drug offenders. That's repugnant.

I think it needs to be made clear that the two main supporters of prohibition are bad cops and drug dealers. That really tells you all you need to know.

What BKX didn't mention is there are forms of hemp that do not have the same stoner effects that could be legalized, but aren't because law enforcement can't easily tell the difference. Or at least that's the reason often cited.

Imagine giving tobacco farmers a replacement crop that would provide them a great income and not have the same social stigma tobacco has. It might be possible that with such a change, growing tobacco for cigarettes would be reduced, naturally driving up the cost of cigarettes and further reducing usage WITHOUT government intervention, while increasing tax revenues from the sales of all the hemp products.

Nah...that would never happen. Who would vote in something that gave our government less control.....

For the record, I am for the legalization of marijuana, the stoner kind. I smoked 30 years ago and so did many people who have since stopped. It's obviously not addictive, except for those that can get addicted to anything.

I also have glaucoma, and spend $100/month (even after insurance) for tiny bottles of eye drops to reduce the pressure. The drops sting when I put them in three times a day. I'd much rather sit out on my back patio a couple times a day and enjoy a little toke.....

Honest question from a skeptic: if hemp is a miracle plant with all these uses, why isn't it being grown all over the world on an industrial scale? We should be seeing cheap hemp paper imports wiping out Weyerhauser and GP, hemp fabric imports wiping out the US cotton industry, and hemp sourced fuel putting ExxonMibil out of business.

Remember it's the burden of proof of those that want legalization not those that view it as being harmful.

Wrong. The burden of proof falls on the accuser, not the accused. That's quite some backwards logic you have there.

The illegalization of marijuana was never based on proof. It was outlawed to protect business. The main supporters of it's illegalization used the public's fear of minorities and anti-marijuana propaganda to accomplish that.

If you'd like you can read up on Harry J. Anslinger for some examples of what kind of "proof" was originally used by the Commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics to describe the problem and afford more power to his position. I've posted some of those examples below.

There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the US, and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos, and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz, and swing, result from marijuana use. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers, and any others.

The primary reason to outlaw marijuana is its effect on the degenerate races.

Agreed, the US alone spends $100 Billion/yr just to enforce pot prohibition, the DEA recieves $10 billion/yr of that directly, again this is just for pot. Pot is the largest cash crop in the US in dollar terms (yes bigger than corn, cotton, wheat, etc). Take that $100 billion/yr plus the tax bonanza on legal pot and fix the health system or something useful. Once the US legalises pot the rest of the western world will follow.

In the country where I currently live, a high profile politician tried an online suggestion box, specifically stating they would base their party program on it.

Predictably, the suggestion box was rapidly filled with exactly the populist crap you expect to be posted on an unmoderated, anonymous political forum: insults, trolling, racist and xenophobic rants, spam, flame wars and advertisements.

Politicians: do not go online just for the sake of looking modern, hip and in touch, you just end up showing just ho

That's a lie. The only connection marijuana has with psychosis is that it irritates schizophrenic symptons, but so does alcohol. The psychiatric community is deathly afraid of marijuana, and make all sorts of claims as to its dangers, without a hint of hard, real research. If a patient smokes marijuana, they claim every single problem the patient is facing stems from the fact he or she smokes marijuana. From psychosis to depression -- it's all caused by marijuana. They claim marijuana's a depressant. The government claims it's a hallucinogen. Science claims it's medicine -- anti-nausea, pro-appetite, anti-depressant qualities. Don't believe me? Believe some real research.
"The endocannabinoid system has been involved in the control of several neurophysiological and behavioural responses. Indeed, recent studies have suggested that the cannabinoid system could represent an important substrate for the control of emotional behaviour, and further research would probably help to identify new promising therapeutic targets. This paper reviews the results obtained in different animal models used to investigate emotional states after the manipulation of the endocannabinoid system. Cannabinoid compounds can induce anxiogenic- and anxiolytic-like responses in rodents depending on the experimental conditions. Studies using knockout mice lacking the CB1 cannabinoid receptors have shown the participation of this receptor in several behavioural responses including anxiety- and depressive-like states. Furthermore, the endocannabinoid system regulates the hypothalamic-pituitary adrenal axis, which is involved in providing an appropriate response to stressful situations. Recent studies have also demonstrated that the endocannabinoids can function as retrograde messengers, modulating the release of different neurotransmitter, including opioids, GABA and cholecystokinin that have been classically involved in the control of anxiety-like responses. All this recent information has further clarified the role played by the endogenous cannabinoid system in the control of emotional behaviour and provides data to support a new possible therapeutic use of cannabinoid compounds."
Valverde, O. "Participation of the cannabinoid system in the regulation of emotional-like behaviour." 26 Nov. 2005. National Center for Biotechnology Information. 5 Jan. 2009. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed...kpos=4&log$=relatedreviews&logdbfrom=pubmed [nih.gov]

Seriously, from all the important topics available for discussion, they care with marijuana legalization and President's birth place?

Of all the important topics available for discussion, yes, the internet users who happened to hear about this and cared enough did choose those. The only people who still care about Obama's place of birth congregate online. This is not a good example of american mentality, unless you define american mentality as what you run into in the dark corners of the net.

I have a few guesses at some of the other items that were high on the list

Of course you're describing exactly the system that the US has already. How clever of you.

Except you've omitted one tiny fact: the US system costs the US government (and thus US taxpayers) approximately 4 TIMES MORE per citizen than socialized systems, and the quality of care is demonstrably lower.

You don't do socialized medicine because it's kinder to poor people (although it is)
You don't do socialized medicine because it creates a healthier and more productive population (although it does)
You don't do socialized medicine because it removes the profit motive (i.e. denial of care) from the healthcare equation (although it helps to do this)

You do socialized medicine because it's cheaper.

Anyone who tells you that socialized medicine is more expensive, and/or will lead to a poorer standard of care, either works for a US insurance company, or is willfully ignoring all the evidence from every other industrialized 1st world country, or, like you I suspect, is just a fsckwit.

Although in general people should be responsible for themselves, there are so many problems with your rant I can't begin to cover them all.
1) Are current model is if you get heart disease without insurance, you have the operation anyway, run up hundreds of thousands in debt, then declare bankruptcy, leaving all the paying health care customers to make up the difference. Good luck with passing a law restricting health care to only those who pay fully in advance!
2) Not all diseases are directly caused by be

I'm absolutely sure the government would have a better run system that costs less.

Actually, the medical systems in countries with socialized medicine or socialized medical insurance do run better and cost less. Steve Jobs wouldn't be able to buy himself a new liver like he just did, but the aggregate health outcomes would be vastly superior. There's a reason that the U.S. has the highest infant mortality rate in the first world.

So you are saying that your next door neighbor DOESN'T deserve to be covered because he has a Forrest Gump IQ and can only seem to hold down mundane minimum wage jobs?

Fact of the matter is, not everyone has the same opportunities. It isn't about how much "effort" you put into it. If no one informed you, life isn't fair and we all aren't on equal ground. By default no one person is more deserving than another. Measuring who deserves what, based on what opportunities are afforded to them is naive at best.

Has Congress declared War? If not, then Habeas Corpus is in full effect.

2. Where does the Bill of Rights say "This only applies to citizens"?

Where?

3. Yes. End all "X race is more equal than Y race" rules. End all types of discrimination.

4. The ideal marriage law is none at all. Marriage is an institution of the church you belong to. Government should have no bearing in that, nor any tax breaks. Let those who can consent do as they wish.